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It’s quiet in the lab. It always is.
Other than the beeps of Nala Se’s medical equipment and scientific machines.
CT-9907’s used to it. There’s something about it almost soothing, especially since he’s been here so long that it’s no longer unnerving to hear nothing but the beeps.
Nala Se’s been letting him out into the main lab more and more, watching his progress as he grows and learns.
At first, she would keep him by her side, but slowly and surely, she loosened her hold over him. Then she would leave him in the room when she was gone entirely, and he wondered if she was watching him through other methods he was yet unaware of. (She was).
It’s a test of character, really. She’s studying him, trying to decide the best and worst things about him.
Once, he thinks he hears a door crack open, but Nala Se isn’t returning- and the sound comes from the direction of one of the many closed doors that he has never been allowed through- the only one he has been in is his room. It peaks his curiosity. But when he turns to it, at the sound of a child gasping in wonder, the door’s quickly closing again and he’s left wondering who’s on the other side of it and why he doesn’t remember meeting them.
“Nala Se, how many others are here? Are they different as well?”
Nala Se refuses to tell him anything.
He reluctantly lets it drop.
He hears her scolding someone the next time he’s locked up in his own room.
Then, one rotation, the Kaminoan scientist comes to retrieve him, leads him from the lab out into the hall- it’s so white compared to the silver plating in the lab that he halts in his surprise.
“Come, CT-9907.” She insists, patiently pausing to wait for him.
“But, Nala Se, where are we going?” He asks.
"We are going to perform an operation that will make you be able to see better." Nala Se tells him.
“See better? But I can see just fine.” He frowns. “Besides, isn't an operation like that dangerous?"
“Come along.” She urges.
He sighs and follows her, because he knows he has no say in it.
He can't look her in the face when it's all over. Even if he could, he'd see nothing more than a pale gray blur.
Disgust wells up in him when he's handed a pair of uncomfortable-looking goggles.
Why me?